


These gifts we give

by kate_the_reader



Series: His sun [5]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Drawing, Exploration, Gender Identity, Gender Presentation, Gifts, M/M, POV Aziraphale (Good Omens), POV Crowley (Good Omens), Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-13 11:54:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21493861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kate_the_reader/pseuds/kate_the_reader
Summary: Continuing their explorations of each other and their bodies and what it is like to be together, Crowley gives Aziraphale gifts. And Aziraphale gives Crowley gifts. And they talk about their different ways of being. Secrets are revealed and trust is freely given.The large plain white box sits on their bed, stark against the dark linen. It’s on what has become Aziraphale’s ‘side’.“What’s this, my dear?”“A gift. Something we spoke about, that I wanted to give you.”Crowley is expectant, but Aziraphale can see a tiny bit of tension in him as well. He is nervous about whatever this is.“A gift?” Aziraphale has not been given many gifts. They have been essentially alone, except for each other, all this time. And before the not-end, they couldn’t really give each other material objects. Gifts of service he had been given in plenty by Crowley, but few things.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: His sun [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1480562
Comments: 26
Kudos: 96





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you as always to my dear friends mycitruspocket and MsBrightsideSH whose insights are always so helpful, and even more so with this fic.

The large plain white box sits on their bed, stark against the dark linen. It’s on what has become Aziraphale’s ‘side’.

“What’s this, my dear?”

“A gift. Something we spoke about, that I wanted to give you.”

Crowley is expectant, but Aziraphale can see a tiny bit of tension in him as well. He is nervous about whatever this is.

“A gift?” Aziraphale has not been given many gifts. They have been essentially alone, except for each other, all this time. And before the not-end, they couldn’t really give each other material objects. Gifts of service he had been given in plenty by Crowley, but few things. 

He takes the lid off the box. Beneath a crumple of silver tissue paper that rustles as he lifts it is a pair of shoes.

“Crowley!”

Crowley is looking at him very steadily, still tense.

“I had a cobbler make them,” he says.

The shoes are a replica of a pair he had in the 1600s. 1601 to be exact. They are the shoes he was wearing when Crowley came to Shakespeare’s theatre. 

Aziraphale lifts them from the box, turns them every way. The leather is the exact shade of rich tan that he recalls.

“You remembered them precisely.”

Crowley makes a face that says: ‘Obviously. What do you take me for? An idiot?’ 

“They are beautiful, my dear. Thank you.”

Crowley smiles at last. “You like them?”

“I do. Of course I do.”

“Would you put them on?” The slight tension has returned.

“I can’t wait to. But I would need a pair of stockings.”

Crowley just raises an eyebrow and Aziraphale looks back into the box. Folded in the bottom are a pair of white stockings. Now there’s a gleam of mischief in Crowley’s eyes. The stockings are thinner than any he has worn before. They are women’s nylons.

“How thoughtful,” says Aziraphale and he knows his face is doing what it always does, when his adoration of Crowley overflows.

He sits down on the bed and takes off his shoes and socks. Then he realises he must take off his trousers too, since the point of these shoes, these stockings, is a well-turned calf. He stands up again and starts to get undressed. He lays his waistcoat on the bed and pushes his suspenders off his shoulders. They have been out, so he is wearing a tie. As he raises his hands to undo the bow, Crowley says: “May I?” and walks round the bed. Aziraphale waits for him. Crowley tugs on the ends and pulls the tie free. Aziraphale can hear Crowley’s breath as his fingers begin to undo the shirt buttons, his smile widening the further down he goes. He pulls the shirt-tails free and bends to place his mouth on the base of Aziraphale’s throat. Aziraphale pushes a hand into Crowley’s long hair. Crowley raises his face to Aziraphale’s and kisses him, his hands firm on his shoulders, his clothes brushing against Aziraphale’s skin, his silver tie, warmed by his body, pressing into Aziraphale’s flesh.

Then he backs away, and Aziraphale undoes his trousers and steps out of them. Crowley takes them from him and hangs them on the clothes rack. Aziraphale, wearing only his underwear, sits on the bed and shakes out a stocking. He leans forward to put it on, but Crowley takes it from him and kneels. Aziraphale holds out his foot and Crowley slips the stocking on, up over his heel, his ankle, his calf, his knee. He smooths it with both hands, and looks up at Aziraphale with such love in his golden eyes. Aziraphale hands him the second stocking and holds out his other foot, and Crowley takes as much slow care with it. When both stockings are on, he wraps his hands around Aziraphale’s calves and rests his forehead on his knees.

Aziraphale waits for him, his hands on Crowley’s shoulder, on the back of his head. At last, Crowley raises his head and holds out his hand for the shoes. He slips the first one onto Aziraphale’s foot. It is narrower than the shoes he wears nowadays, but he remembers the feel of these shoes. Crowley slips the second one on and fastens them, stands up and steps back, a pleased smile quirking his mouth.

“Just as I recalled, angel. Beautiful.”

Aziraphale looks down at his legs, at his feet; turns his right foot this way and that, pointed. He feels … elegant. If he ignores the fact that he is otherwise naked except for his underwear. He does ignore that. It’s so long since he had a chance to wear anything like this.

He stands up. He has not walked in a shoe with a heel for scores of years. He takes a tentative step and then another. The shoes change his posture, elongate the muscles of his leg. He walks across the room, looks at Crowley over his shoulder and turns and walks back towards him. But Crowley isn’t looking at his feet in the shoes, his calves in the stockings; he is looking straight into Aziraphale’s eyes. “Angel,” he says, quiet, a note of wonder in his voice, “angel.”

When Aziraphale reaches him, Crowley pulls him close. “Thank you,” he says. 

In the heels, he is exactly as tall as Crowley. It feels odd, not tipping his face up when they kiss. He stops noticing after a while. Finally, Crowley says: “Come to the bed?”

Not “come to bed”. He has something else in mind, so Aziraphale sits down. 

“Come up here,” says Crowley, heaping pillows. Aziraphale slides until his back is against the cushioning, his legs stretched out in front of him. He crosses his ankles, his toes slightly pointed, and watches Crowley.

Crowley smiles, a tiny smirk of triumph, so Aziraphale knows he’s done what Crowley hoped he would. Crowley kneels on the bed and places his hands on Aziraphale’s ankles, slipping them up his calves, squeezing the muscles. He’s breathing rather heavily. “Missed these,” he says, “thought I might never …” he trails off.

“I was lucky, when we were looking after our Warlock,” says Aziraphale. “Nanny’s legs looked lovely, under those severe suits.”

“I liked those,” says Crowley, but his voice isn’t as light as it might be. Aziraphale waits for him.

Crowley shakes his head, flicking his hair back over his shoulder. “That wasn’t an easy house to be a woman in,” he says. 

“Did the ambassador try—?”

“Once.” Crowley’s voice is harsh. “The housekeeper wasn’t as good as I at shutting him down. The first housekeeper. Or the second. Did you ever wonder why they went through so many staff? And why they were all so young?”

“I’m ashamed to say I didn’t.”

“Well, you were off in your little cottage.”

Crowley’s hands are still on his calves. He shakes his head again, as if to get rid of the memories. “I was tempted to cause his suits to be scorched and his meals to be oversalted, but that would only have harmed the women. So I just made him trip over the stair carpet rather often. Sometimes he fell quite heavily. When he’d had a few, you know. And his car got more flat tyres than was strictly believable.” His smile is hard, his demon nature flashing out. 

“But I did like being Warlock’s nanny.” He softens. “Although he was a … challenging child.” 

“I always found him rather sweet. Of course, I had him far from his parents’ influence,” says Aziraphale.

“And you’re you, angel. You see the best in people. You bring it out.”

“I wonder how he is, after all that Megiddo drama?”

“Yeah. We should find out.”

“Go and see him, perhaps.”

“Mmmm.” Crowley’s mind isn’t on the Dowlings anymore. 

He moves his hands from Aziraphale’s calves to his knees, to his thighs. The stockings, edged with lace, stop halfway up. Crowley traces along the top of each with a finger. His touch on Aziraphale’s body is always delicate. Especially the first time he explores a new place.

“Thank you for wearing these. For indulging me,” he says quietly.

“Crowley. You don’t have to … you know I would … I would do anything to please you.”

“You shouldn’t though,” says Crowley, voice a bit rough. “Don’t just do anything for me. Only what _you _want.”

“But nothing you ask is something I can’t give, something I don’t want to give you. Sometimes I don’t know what it is, until you ask. Like these.” He gestures at his legs and feet. “I didn’t know how much I would like this. Wearing them. For you.”

Crowley looks up at him and smiles. “I hoped you would.”

“Thank you for giving me a gift like this.”

Crowley straddles Aziraphale and takes his face between both hands, his thumbs stroking along his cheekbones. “I wonder if you know how much you have given me?”

-

Some time after that, another box, wider and flatter than the first, appears on the bed.

“Another gift? Crowley, you shouldn’t!”

“Course I should.”

Aziraphale opens the box. Tissue paper again. He pushes it aside and reveals a silk garment, the blue of a robin’s egg, richly embroidered with flowers and birds. He lifts it out. It drops heavily from its folds: a full-length dressing gown. Aziraphale thinks it is the most beautiful garment he has ever seen. And he thinks he knows how Crowley would like him to wear it. He takes off his jacket, his waistcoat, his tie, his trousers, his shirt and slips the gown on. It settles on his bare shoulders, cool and weighty.

Crowley is leaning in the doorway with studied casualness.

“Would you like to help me with my stockings and shoes, my dear?”

Crowley nods and pushes himself off the doorframe, fetches the shoes and stockings and goes down on one knee in front of Aziraphale, a hand on his calf. Aziraphale lifts his foot to Crowley’s raised knee, steadying himself with a hand on his shoulder, and Crowley slips on the first stocking, stroking his hands up Aziraphale’s leg. Then the second. Then the shoes. He places his hands on Aziraphale’s hips, and leans his forehead into his stomach. “Thank you, angel,” he says. 

Aziraphale’s hands are on Crowley’s head, the back of his neck. “This is the loveliest thing I have ever worn,” he says. “I feel …” he hesitates, and then he says what he wants to: “I feel very beautiful.”

Crowley tips his head back and looks up. He is smiling, but his eyes shine with tears. Aziraphale reaches for his hand and helps him to his feet and pulls him close and holds him for a long time.

Much later, walking around the flat, he realises that the gown’s skirt is flared wide. He spins carefully, making it blossom around his legs. Clever Crowley has given him a woman’s gown.

Aziraphale has always lived in a form that looks male. He is comfortable in it and he has found exploring it with Crowley profoundly moving, but it is just a form, not the essence of his true self.

Crowley sees him. “I thought you might like to try … what it can feel like.”

“But it’s not the same as you did. At the Dowlings’.” The other time he knows Crowley had a woman’s form is not a time they have spoken about. “Or at Golgotha.”

A shadow comes over Crowley’s face. “I wanted not to be a ‘man’ then. It was men carrying out that plan.” 

There’s a touch of scorn in his voice. They have never agreed about God’s plans all these long centuries, and they have tacitly agreed not to discuss it. But Aziraphale understands what Crowley means. What was done that day was brutal, and brutality has always pained Crowley. He himself often refused to question Heaven’s harshness, the suffering deemed necessary in pursuit of some holier purpose. But Crowley has always questioned. 

“Yes,” he says, “I think I understand why. Were you able to—?”

“Comfort the women? No. I didn’t presume. I don’t know why I even went to see them do that. I suppose, having met him …” He trails off, and Aziraphale doesn’t press him. 

They are sitting together on Crowley’s new sofa. Aziraphale is running his fingers over an embroidered bird on the fabric falling over his knee and Crowley drops his hand over Aziraphale’s. They don’t have to speak about it now. Perhaps they will, another time. Perhaps not. 

“Sometimes and in some places a woman’s form lets you go unnoticed. Not always,” says Crowley. “Less and less, it seems to me.”

-

There is something Aziraphale wants to give to Crowley. He also wants to experience the giving of a gift, having learnt the receiving. 

The box is smaller than the ones that contained Crowley’s gifts to him. He places it on their bed. On Crowley’s pillow.

“For me?” Crowley’s mouth seems to be fighting a battle not to smile too widely.

“You should also receive gifts.”

“Angel.”

Crowley opens the box and lifts out the heavy silver-backed hairbrush. Beneath it is a matching hand mirror. Aziraphale had hesitated before including it. Crowley’s not really one for mirrors. Especially with his glasses off. 

Crowley weighs the brush in his hand and looks at Aziraphale, shaking his hair back.

“I thought … your lovely hair … you deserve—”

“Will you brush it for me?” It is a gift meant to be shared, as Crowley’s gifts to Aziraphale were.

“Of course. I would love to. To take care of you.”

“Now?”

“Do you have something else to do?”

“Nothing.”

“Well then. Come sit with me.” 

Aziraphale takes off his shoes and sits on the bed, sliding back towards the pillows, and waits for Crowley. When he is bracketed by Aziraphale’s legs, Crowley hands him the hairbrush and bows his head. His hair tumbles down his back in messy waves.

Aziraphale lays the soft bristles of the brush — he’d had them renewed after he bought the antique set — at Crowley’s hairline and sweeps down, down to the very ends. He follows each stroke of the brush with his hand, the hair like living silk to his touch. They don’t speak at first, the room’s hush broken only by small sounds of pleasure Crowley is making, and the soft hiss of the brush.

Then Crowley says: “Can see why Up There was dead against exclusive bonds or whatever they call it. The more we do this, the less I ever want to leave the house.”

“Mmmm.”

Crowley’s hands are wrapped around Aziraphale’s ankles; they’re connected in an unbroken circle. He’s not keeping track of time, or of the strokes of the brush through Crowley’s hair — it might have been hours, it might have been hundreds — he could do this endlessly, and he lets his mind drift.

These gifts, the giving and receiving and enjoying of them, have made him think far more than he has before of their corporeal forms, and why they present themselves here on Earth as they do.

“Have you spent other time in a woman’s form?” he asks Crowley now. “Time I don’t know about?”

“Hmmm?”

“There’s so much time I know nothing about. So many long years when we were so far apart. I used to wonder where you were, what you were doing. If you were happy.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Happy? Oh, my dear.” 

Aziraphale puts down the brush and wraps his arms around Crowley, pulling him close to his chest.

“I kept myself busy. Or I slept, if I could get away with it. Made the time pass.”

Tears are pressing at the back of Aziraphale’s throat.

“Lonely,” he says.

“Were you?”

“Happy? I thought I was. Keeping busy. Doing my job. And I had my books. It was an illusion, I suppose.”

“Your job was better. Easier to pretend you were happy. I liked doing your jobs for you, when you asked.”

“I never did yours. I just didn’t do mine, let it cancel out. Not that much more of a fib on the report.”

“Clever angel.”

Aziraphale pushes the silken curtain of Crowley’s hair aside and presses his mouth to the nape of his neck. “I was lonely too,” he confesses quietly, into the secret hidden spot.

Crowley twists in his arms to face him, takes his face in his hands and looks steadily into his eyes. “No more,” he says, quietly vehement.

“Never,” Aziraphale agrees.

Crowley hasn't answered his question, but what they have said is more important.

*

He'd hoped, when he had them made, that Aziraphale would like the shoes, and enjoy wearing them, that they would remind him of a day Crowley remembered as particularly happy. 

He'd wanted to see him wearing them, imagined what his legs and feet would look like, thinking back to Aziraphale in heeled shoes and stockings. He hadn't intended the gift to make Aziraphale feel feminine, whatever that meant. But when he couldn't find the right stockings, the thick sort they'd worn then, he had bought women's stockings, delicate and lace-edged, and Aziraphale hadn't turned a hair.

Crowley's chest feels tight when he thinks of Aziraphale immediately stripping down to his underwear, the better to show off his legs, allowing Crowley to put the stockings on him, walking across the room without a hint of shyness, so open and free.

After their talk had turned to their time at the Dowlings', and what it had been like for Crowley to have a female form there, he'd dared to give Aziraphale the second gift. It had been thrilling to have to the gorgeous gown made for him, and to watch him put it on, and hear him say he felt "very beautiful". Crowley gets a weird fluttery feeling when he thinks about that. That his gift made his lovely, lovely angel feel as beautiful as he is. He can't help smiling at the recollection of him spinning round, making the gown flare like a flower.

His remark about wearing women’s clothes had sent them to an event he doesn’t like to think about — and he especially dislikes talking to Aziraphale about. He had never been able to shake Aziraphale’s faith in God’s ineffable plans, even though he had tried, when he’d been especially horrified. Until this latest go-round. And now he’s just happy finally to have Aziraphale to himself, stuff everything else. But it does feel like a blot on their honesty with each other, to avoid these hard things. 

He pushes that thought aside, in favour of thinking about Aziraphale’s gift. About Aziraphale saying without words: ‘Let me take care of you’. About being held by Aziraphale while he swept the brush again and again and again through his hair — soothing, mesmerising. 

About Aziraphale continuing what Crowley had started, with a gift of something made for a woman. Crowley has spent more of his long time among humans in the shape of a man than in that of a woman. He’s comfortable in it, and it certainly was easier, throughout most of their history. And Aziraphale likes it. Likes Crowley’s male form alongside his own male form. And what does it matter, anyway. Touch is touch. Care is care. Loving is loving. But Aziraphale’s gift also seemed to say: ‘I love you in whatever form you choose to explore.’ Had said it again. He has never said or implied anything different.

*

The silver-backed hairbrush lies on the table next to their bed, where Crowley places a different gorgeously flowering plant every few days. The blue gown hangs from a hook, the shoes placed neatly below, stockings carefully rolled inside them. Aziraphale’s breath catches when he looks at them, such thoughtful gifts, so expressive of Crowley’s regard, each one telling him: ‘You are beautiful, you are allowed to be free, to explore, to try new things, or have things again that you thought you had lost.’ That’s the most precious gift Crowley has given him: freedom from judgment, even the judgment of his own mind.

There is something else he wants to give Crowley now. Something he would have hesitated to consider before they began this exploration. He forces down a slight feeling of guilt at the expense and visits the exclusive boutique. The staff there are very kind, not betraying any surprise when he tells them the size he needs. There are not many available, but the young man serving him says they do keep a few, for special clients. 

They are exquisite.

The young man advises Aziraphale on where to buy the other items. “I hope you enjoy them,” he says as he hands over the posh bag.

“Thank you. I’m sure we will.”

Aziraphale can hardly believe he has made these purchases. He can hardly wait to give them to Crowley. 

“What’s that you have there, angel?” Crowley steps out of his plant room as Aziraphale comes in the front door.

Aziraphale had hoped to put the black box on the bed for Crowley to find. He tries to hide the bag, with the name on it in large letters, behind his back.

“I’ll call you in a minute,” he says. 

“Alright,” Crowley agrees, “I’ll just finish up.” He puts on a fierce expression and brandishes his sprayer, to make Aziraphale smile.

He places the two packages on the bed, the smaller leaning against the box, and tucks the telltale bag away. “Alright, my dear,” he calls.

“I missed you,” Crowley says, coming in and kissing Aziraphale without looking at the things waiting for him.

“I’ve only been out a few hours.”

“I always miss you.”

They’ve so quickly become almost inseparable, making up for all the lonely decades.

“I know. And I you.” Aziraphale holds him close, breathing in the cool damp aroma of his plants.

Crowley keeps hold of his hand as he steps towards the bed and the waiting gifts. “For me?” he asks, unnecessarily.

“For you,” Aziraphale confirms. “For you, my darling.”

“And perhaps for you?” says Crowley, a gleam of wickedness in his eyes. He lifts the lid of the box, and folds back the red tissue paper. “Oh, angel.” 

In Crowley’s hands, the shoes’ red soles glow against the slick black shine of the leather, their narrow heels almost impossibly high. 

Aziraphale hopes he hasn’t made a mistake. He doesn’t think he has.

Crowley sets the shoes carefully down and picks up the smaller package, wrapped by a lovely young woman who had smiled as she handed it to Aziraphale. Crowley is smiling as he opens it. Inside are two boxes.

“Angel,” Crowley breathes. “Will you help me?” His hands are at his belt already as Aziraphale opens the first box and takes out the tiny lacy thing. Crowley’s eyes widen and he lets his trousers fall. He’s forgotten his boots in his haste and he almost trips. Aziraphale kneels to help him. Crowley’s other garment is a slate-coloured t-shirt and that is easy to get out of. Aziraphale hands him the black lace garter belt and he steps into it and settles it on his hips, the clips dangling on his thighs. Aziraphale’s fingers tremble as he opens the second box. 

“Shall I …?”

Crowley nods and sits on the edge of the bed, as Aziraphale kneels again and slips the first sheer black stocking over Crowley’s foot, up his slender calf, past his knee, all the way up, and clips it (after a moment of struggle), letting his fingers linger briefly on the soft skin of Crowley’s inner thigh. Crowley gasps and Aziraphale picks up his other foot. When both legs are clad in almost-not-there black, Crowley hands him the shoes and he slips them on.

Crowley is beautiful wearing anything and nothing. He takes Aziraphale’s breath away now. He stands and walks across the room, the black line of his scales disappearing into his underwear, beneath the black lace, his legs longer than they have ever seemed. He is graceful, the towering heels making his hips sway with every step. Aziraphale had tried to picture what he might look like, but he had failed utterly. He has remained kneeling, transfixed, and Crowley returns to him and reaches for his hands to help him to his feet.

“Crowley,” he says, his voice a hoarse whisper, “Crowley.”

Crowley has to bend more than usual to kiss Aziraphale. “Angel,” he says, smiling against his mouth.

“Thank you,” Aziraphale answers.

“How did you …?”

“Know that these existed?”

“Well, yes. But what made you think of them, for me?”

“How could I not? I saw them in a magazine. And then when you gave me my shoes, and those stockings, and my gorgeous robe, I also wanted to experience that, giving something like that. And seeing you wear them.”

“And did you like it?”

“Crowley! How can you ask me that? Of course I did.” His face is hot.

“I’ve never worn a shoe quite this high,” says Crowley, looking down at his feet. “Might take a bit of practice to learn to walk in them. It would be easier if I had the support of someone’s arm. Someone’s strong arm.”

“Well, my dear.” Aziraphale offers Crowley his arm and they walk across the room together, to where his robe hangs from its hook. 

Crowley runs his hand down the silk. “Would you like—?”

“Of course. I don’t want to be in outdoor clothes.” He takes off his jacket and holds it while Crowley unravels his tie and unfastens the buttons on his waistcoat. He supposes Crowley could just snap his fingers and leave him naked, but he never has, preferring to take his time. Aziraphale supposes he could just snap his fingers, but he also prefers this slow pace.

Crowley takes the jacket and waistcoat from Aziraphale and comes back to push his shirt off his shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. And then he kneels to untie his shoes and pull off his socks, his hands lingering as always. Finally he undoes Aziraphale's trousers and pauses to press his face against his stomach. It is a touch they both love. Aziraphale places his hands on Crowley's head, lost in his hair.

After a long moment, Crowley stands again and bends to pick up Aziraphale's new shoes.

"Come sit."

Aziraphale sits on the edge of the bed in his underwear and Crowley puts on his stockings with as much care as the first time, and the second. They are held up by the bands of lace at their tops.

"These are silly pants," says Aziraphale, looking at Crowley's long fingers on his thighs between the lace and the bottoms of his striped boxers.

"They're not," says Crowley, slipping his hands up beneath the edges. "But would you like different ones?"

“I think I would,” says Aziraphale, "Please." He blushes at his boldness. He used to ask Crowley for favours without asking, but they don't need such little tricks now. Crowley smiles. Aziraphale will wait to be surprised.

“Come up here now,” says Crowley, indicating the pillows, “You don’t need your shoes yet.”

Aziraphale moves backwards up the bed and leans against the pillows. Crowley’s flat had been full of hard surfaces and sharp edges, but there are heaps of pillows now. More and more softness that Aziraphale is certain is not just for him. 

Crowley follows him, crawling across the bed, and straddles Aziraphale’s thighs, his own thighs lean and strong under the sheer black stockings.

He puts his hands on Aziraphale’s shoulders, leaning in close. But he doesn’t close the tiny space between their mouths until he has said: “Thank you for this gift. You make me feel beautiful.” He kisses Aziraphale before he can answer, his tongue pressing possessively into his mouth, a welcome intrusion. Aziraphale puts his hands on Crowley’s hips, slipping his fingers under the lace, digging his thumbs in — he is also possessive. The marks he put on Crowley’s throat the other day have almost faded, but Crowley’s fingers have strayed to them often. Crowley breaks their kiss and moves a hand to Aziraphale’s jaw, tilting his chin to gain access, moving his mouth across his skin. Aziraphale’s breath flutters as he waits for the hot bruise that was once too much to accept. Will Crowley place it where it can be hidden, or where he can see it even when Aziraphale is dressed? Crowley’s mouth stops where his skin is softest, high on his throat. On display then.

He continues his explorations with mouth and hands down Aziraphale’s chest and stomach, exquisite touches that Aziraphale adores. And then he settles with his head on Aziraphale’s hip, the fingers of one hand slipping under a stocking edge. He tangles their legs, the nylon making a soft shushing sound as it brushes together.

“Will you draw me in these?” he says. “I want to see what you see.”

“I would be honoured to.”

Aziraphale’s heart feels as if it will burst through his chest.

After they have lain together a long time, still except for the fingers on Aziraphale’s thigh, the hand on Crowley’s back, Crowley lifts his head.

“May I stand? For your drawing?”

“However you would be comfortable, my love.”

Crowley nods and gets off the bed. He walks across the room with as much breathtaking grace as before, and out the door. He returns with the sketchbook, pen and ink. After the first time, the drawing things had disappeared and Aziraphale had not wondered where they had been removed to. Perhaps they’d been sent back where they came from. 

“I put them away until we needed them,” Crowley says, handing them to Aziraphale. He moves a few steps off and half turns, so his back is to Aziraphale and his face is in profile, the long fingers of his left hand on his hip, his hair sweeping down his back and across his shoulder.

“I’m ready now.”

Aziraphale uncaps the ink and dips the pen. The sketchbook’s paper is a thick smooth ivory, the best he has ever drawn on.

He spends a long moment simply looking, and then makes his first mark, a line that sweeps from Crowley’s shoulder to his ankle. His hands are sure, not trembling as he had feared they might. For a long while, the room is silent except for the tiny scratch of the pen. 

“I took a female form for a while in Berlin, in the 1920s,” Crowley suddenly says. 

“Oh?” says Aziraphale. He wants Crowley to continue.

“It was like that other time. Men had done such terrible things, in their Great War. So I took another form.” He is quiet and Aziraphale thinks he has finished.

“Human misery and stupidity and defiance and decadence all mixed up. Bread lines and cabarets. Naked men embracing in the sun. I thought it would suit me. It did, for a while. Until it turned to outright cruelty. I couldn’t bear that.”

Aziraphale sets the book aside and gets off the bed, crossing the room to Crowley. “Of course you could not, my love. I wish you had come to me.”

“I was too disgusted with it all. I didn’t want to bring even a hint of that taint near you.”

“I found it without you. I have always been rather blind to their evil. And you have always come to save me from my naïveté.”

“I see them. And I see you. And I come.”

He reaches out to draw Aziraphale to him. With Crowley in the towering heels and Aziraphale in stocking feet, his head tucks under Crowley’s chin.

“Thank you,” he says. “For it all. For then and for now. Especially for now, my darling.”

“Angel,” says Crowley, against Aziraphale’s hair, “of course then. Of course now.” Then: “May I see?” He takes Aziraphale’s hand and walks over to the bed, where the sketchbook is lying open, the ink dry by now.

“Oh,” he says quietly. “Really? Do I really …?”

“Yes. You really are that lovely.”

Crowley traces a finger lightly down the inked line of his spine, over the black scales spreading at the small of his back.

“In your eyes.” He turns to face Aziraphale. “Thank you for giving me this gift.” His eyes shine with unshed tears. “I can believe you now,” he says, his voice thick.


	2. Chapter 2

There is already something on their bed when Crowley returns with yet another flat white box — something very flat, lying on his pillow. He lays his box on Aziraphale’s pillow and goes to find him.

He is on the sofa with a book. Aziraphale seems content here, in Crowley’s rather forbidding space, but Crowley wonders when he’ll get bored, need his books to potter among. And honestly, Crowley misses the shop too. All its nooks, its comfortable chairs where he loved to doze, listening to Aziraphale bustling, surrounded by his scent, which has sunk into the place over the course of more than two centuries, bathed in the Aziraphaleness of it all.

“If I’d known you were going out, I’d have come with you, my dear.”

“I only went to get something. Would you like to see what it is?” There’s no need to pretend it isn’t another gift.

Crowley leans over the back of the sofa to kiss Aziraphale, holding his hair out of the way with one hand. Sometimes it’s hard to believe he can do this whenever he likes, can kiss Aziraphale for any reason or no real reason. Can kiss him with passion, with tenderness, or simply in greeting. Sometimes it’s almost too much, and then he has to close his eyes and just breathe and remind himself it is real.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale breaks through his stillness.

“Come and see, angel,” he says, shaking himself and smiling at Aziraphale.

Aziraphale smiles back, open and happy. “Lead on, my dear,” he says, getting up and coming round the sofa to take Crowley’s hand.

Aziraphale practically wriggles with pleasure as they enter the bedroom.

“Another box?” he says.

“Yes, for you.”

“There’s something on your pillow too,” says Aziraphale.

“So I see.” The shape of the object makes it rather obvious that it must be a picture. “Will you show me?” Crowley sits on the edge of the bed. Aziraphale reaches for the picture and sits next to him. 

A large sheet of paper has been folded in half around a smaller sheet. Inside is the drawing Aziraphale made of him in the heels and the stockings. 

He had expected that, but it is not as he saw it when Aziraphale had just finished it. He has added a cloudy wash of almost-black to the stockings, and a flash of scarlet to the soles of the shoes. He has coloured Crowley’s hair. And he has applied tiny specks of gold leaf to his eyes. 

Crowley gazes at it, unable to form words, almost unable to breathe. His heart actually hurts in his chest and he has to blink.

“I made a drawing long ago,” says Aziraphale, his voice soft. “In a monastery. I … took some flakes of gold. For your eyes. I kept it for a long while. But eventually I lost it.” He has taken Crowley’s hand. “I hoped I would get a chance to make another with gold. This is the picture that deserves it. Don’t you think?” Aziraphale strokes a delicate touch over Crowley’s face in the picture.

Crowley turns his face away, into Aziraphale’s shoulder, so his tears will not mar the drawing and cause the ink to run — as they had on another drawing what seems like a long time ago, but is really no time at all.

Aziraphale strokes the side of Crowley's face. He doesn't say anything, or try to soothe him, he just holds him. And Crowley holds on too, his arms around Aziraphale’s waist, until his tears stop.

He lifts his head, and Aziraphale wipes the tears away with his fingers. Crowley presses his mouth into the palm of Aziraphale’s hand. “Thank you,” he whispers, into his skin. Aziraphale looks into his eyes as no other being ever has.

“Oh, my love.” 

Aziraphale has set the drawing safely aside on the bed. Now Crowley leans across his lap and carefully opens the folded sheet again. “Thank you.”

He sits up and reaches for the box.

“My gift to you seems paltry by comparison,” he says as he hands it to Aziraphale.

“Crowley! Everything you have given me is precious. You have given me … myself. The courage to learn new things. Freedom from judgment. You have given me pleasure. Every one of these things you have given me in these last weeks is so much more than what they seem. You see me.”

He lifts the lid of the box and folds aside the tissue. Inside are seven pairs of silk pants: duck egg blue and sea green; the lavender and gold of the sunrise; the violet of the evening sky as the first stars come out; the dark slate grey of Crowley’s bed sheets; the bold red of the soles of his shoes.

“Oh!” Aziraphale takes out the red pair. The cut is similar to his striped pants — Crowley likes those too much. “I never thought, when I asked, I never thought of anything quite so decadent, quite so lovely!” 

“I do see you, angel. As you see me.” 

Aziraphale stands up and starts to unbutton his shirt. He is not wearing a tie, his collar is unfastened, his sleeves are rolled to the elbows — Crowley can’t believe he has hardly noticed that before now. He pushes the suspenders from his shoulders and bends down to take off his shoes and socks. Normally, Crowley likes to undress Aziraphale, now he simply watches. Aziraphale steps out of his trousers. He puts his thumbs inside the waistband of his underwear and pushes them down. His eyes have not left Crowley’s. He lets the pants fall to his ankles and kicks them off. Picks up the red silk ones and steps into them. His eyes are sparkling and he smiles Crowley’s favourite smile as he comes to stand between his knees. 

Crowley wraps his arms around Aziraphale’s waist, and presses his mouth to his generous stomach, and lets his hands drift down across the red silk. 

Crowley revels in all the softness.

There are so many ways to give a gift. So many gifts to give.

**Author's Note:**

> The shoes are [Christian Louboutins](http://us.christianlouboutin.com/us_en/shop/women/fifille.html), of course.
> 
> I wrote a coda for this in my The season series, it is here: [Risks](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21889408)
> 
> If you like this story, I’d love to hear from you.


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